A Zola Dictionary; the Characters of the Rougon-Macquart Novels of Emile Zola; eBook

At sixteen years of age she had a child by an unknown
father, and two years later was installed in a flat
in Boulevard Haussmann by a rich merchant of Moscow,
who had come to pass the winter in Paris. Bordenave,
the director of the Theatre des Varietes, gave her
a part in a play called La Blonde Venus, and
though her voice was poor and she was ignorant of
acting, she was by the sheer force of her beauty an
immediate and overwhelming success. All Paris
was at her feet; Comte Muffat, Steiner, the Prince
of Scots himself, came in turn to offer homage.
It seemed as if this girl, born of four or five generations
of drunkards and brought up on the pavements of Paris,
was to revenge her race upon the idle rich by the
wild extravagances into which she dragged them.
Muffat and Steiner were her lovers, and ruined themselves
by the vast sums which she squandered; Georges Hugon
killed himself from jealousy of his brother Philippe,
who embezzled for her sake, and brought himself to
imprisonment and disgrace; Vandeuvres too, after courting
dishonour, met death at his own hand; and Foucarmont,
stripped bare and cast off, went to perish in the
China seas. The procession was unending; more
money was always required. After a successful
appearance in a play called Melusine, Nana
suddenly left Paris and went to the East. Strange
stories were told of her—­the conquest of
a viceroy, a colossal fortune acquired in Russia—­but
nothing definite was known. When she returned
to Paris in 1870 she found that her son Louiset had
been attacked by small-pox, and she herself contracted
the disease from him. A few days later she died
in a room in the Grand Hotel, nursed only by Rose
Mignon, who had come to her in her trouble. The
war with Germany had just broken out, and as she lay
dying the passing crowds were shouting ceaselessly,
“A Berlin, A Berlin.” Nana.

COUPEAU (LOUIS). See Louiset.

COUPEAU (MADAME), mother of Coupeau the zinc-worker.
She was an old woman, and, her sight having given
way, was unable to support herself. Her daughter,
Madame Lorilleux, refused anything but the most trifling
assistance, and ultimately Gervaise Coupeau took the
old woman into her own home and supported her till
her death, which occurred some years later. L’Assommoir.

COURAJOD, a great landscape painter, whose masterpiece,
the Pool at Gagny, is in the Luxembourg.
Long before his death he disappeared from the world
of art, and lived in a little house at Montmartre surrounded
by his hens, ducks, rabbits, and dogs. He refused
to speak of his former fame, and when Claude Lantier
called on him the old man seemed to be entering into
a second childhood, forgetful of his past. L’Oeuvre.

COUTARD, a soldier of infantry who belonged to the
Second Division of the First Army Corps, which was
defeated at Wissembourg on 4th August, 1870.
He and his companion Picot were slightly wounded, and
were left behind, not being able to rejoin their regiments
for three weeks, most of which they spent tramping
the country through wet and mud, endeavouring to overtake
the vanquished army of France. La Debacle.